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Friday, January 20, 2012

Hey there! Oh! How busy we have been here... Christmas was *wonderful*~ our oldest son Nate was home from Ft. Benning GA where he is stationed with the Army for two whole weeks, our oldest daughter Micah and her husband Joshua were in town and my brother David, who I have not seen in seven years was home as well! Oh! I thought my heart would burst with joy!

We did manage, after several tries to get our annual family Christmas photo taken.

We actually ended up with several that I liked...

When you are trying to get 11 children to all look the same direction and smile while using the self-timer on the camera there are bound to be some amusing expressions! I still love each of these photos~ and there were more as well. So, so cool to have these to look back on from each year!

For some reason a number of my photos from past blog posts have mysteriously disappeared! Flickr, what are you doing to me?!! I will try to go back and fix those in the next week or so. If anyone has any idea about why that might be happening, I'd love to hear!

So much has happened in the last few weeks that I hardly know what to write about! As I mentioned, Christmas was fabulous... flew by entirely too fast, but still I was somewhat relieved when all of the fun was done. I *love* Christmas... celebrating Jesus' birth, decorating, baking, family fun, etc, etc, but I also *really* like to get "back to normal" when it is all done. The day after Christmas I was already putting decorations away, glad to get back to our normal routine around here.

On New Year's Day my sweet family decided to celebrate my birthday a little early before Nate had to leave and head back to his job as a chaplain's assistant in the Army. They were so sweet! The girls made a delicious dinner and even made my favorite black forest cheesecake! The older children decided to surprise me and purchased a new Specialized bike helmet for me! It even matches my bike and is so much nicer than the cheap WalMart helmet that I have been using for the past 5 years!

And speaking of bikes, helmets and exercising, I have been officially given the "go-ahead" to swim, bike and run as much as I would like! So I am back running with Tom or the boys... keeping it to every other day for now, but I'm pretty pleased that after only two weeks I have already put in a 7 mile run and several 3-4 mile trail runs. I'm really excited about the races that I am training for this year... I'll post more about that soon.

We started back to school on Jan 2 and on the 3rd the boys were unloading firewood from our pickup truck. Daniel was down on the ground while his brothers were tossing the wood out. A piece accidentally hit his hand, tearing his fingernail off and breaking his finger as well! Poor boy! I am so grateful that we have a children's hospital here in Kansas City. Six stitches, some bandaging and a splint later we were home. Daniel was *fabulous* at the hospital... I think the nurses there are used to having to practically tie down children who need x-rays, stitches, etc, but Daniel was super-good! So proud of him.

We are now more than two weeks out and his finger is looking much better... don't worry, I won't post a photo here!

This past week we had a bit of a viral "bug" go through the family... I think it was the first time we've been sick all winter... definitely made for a quiet day or two around here...

One of the children captured these photos of Tom and I as he was getting ready to go run... I love it when they do that. For too many years I was "missing" in our photo albums.

So many memories to record! Several of you have written to me about Project Life with questions, etc. I think that I replied personally to each of you, but if I missed answering any of your questions, please feel free to leave a comment here or shoot me an email. I've completed two years of Project Life now, (you can see my PL posts here) and yes, I am definitely going to fill another album or two this year as well. I don't have time to scrapbook any other way, and I have found this system of documenting our lives and stories to be fabulously rewarding and fulfilling. As I come across interesting PL freebies (like free journaling cards) and examples of PL pages I am trying to post them to my Pinterest PL board. Hope that will be helpful!

Oh! I have so much more that I have been thinking and praying about... so much to share, but I need to stop writing for now. I want to tell you about my "One Little Word" for 2012 and so many other things! Soon....

5 comments:

You have such a beautiful family. <3 I was so touched to hear that your son in the Army got to be with you for two weeks. My husband is in the Air Force (non-active though) I admire all those who serve. I also loved the pictures of you and your husband. So sweet! Have a blessed weekend.

Dear Susan ~ I was praying for YOU the other night...you were silent for so long...SO glad all is well! What WONDERFUL news that you have the go-ahead for doing all those fun things you enjoy so much! YIPPEEE! :)

Hi Susan,Oh, I just love your family photos. Your family is beautiful and God has really blessed you with lots of kids ;) :) I think my favorite photo is the one where your hubby is giving you a kiss on the cheek...so sweet :) :)

I'm glad you have the go-ahead for more physical activity. It's so important for overall health and well-being :) :) Love and hugs from the ocean shores of California, Heather :)